Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Spider Mutant

I am in charting hell.

If I get a "shout-out" I am using it now.

If you are taking a chart that was written for flat knitting, do you have to do anything weird to it to knit with it in the round? I'm trying to take a chart from a christening gown and use it as the border for Spider Mutant knitting from the center outwards. ie, knitting in the round. I thought that I would do row one reading from right to left, then knit row two reading from left to right. Am I right or is there something else I have to do? I am not doing right or left leaning decreases. Just doing K2tog. I just know fleegle and missalicefaye know the answer to this.

8 comments:

No, nothing weird. Every row will be on the right side so there is no wrong side rows. I do not have the pattern but if it is lace knitting it will have no purl rows, if it is knitted lace just slant the decreases to the same side as the previous row.

Thank you for helping me out! This is knitted lace on a garter stitch ground. I'm sure it's just my left/right problem. If I understand you. I just go ahead and read the chart from right to left for each and every row since I'm always on the right side of the work? No reading from left to right, correct? Since I'm not flipping the work over?

Jane, if you are knitting in the round completely, then you have to purl every other row to retain the garter-stitchness. If you want stockinette stitch, them you will just knit every row as if you were working a sock.

If you are knitting up the the beginning and turning the work (and have to graft the fourth side) then you can knit back and forth. Obviously, you will knit from right to left on the odd rows, then knit left to right on the even rows.

The only tricky part if you are knitting in the round are the expansion areas at the corners.

What I did was allot five stitches to this area: the sequence is k1, YO, k1 (corner stitch), YO, K1. This keeps one knit stitch between the expansion area and the pattern body.

Every knit row, you will move one stitch from the beginning of the expansion area to the end of the side and one stitch from the end of the expansion area to the beginning of the next side. This keeps five stitches in the expansion area, while increasing one stitch on each end of the current side, or eight stitches total for each round.

You must begin the round at the corner stitch you have deemed to be the beginning of the round. This expansion area is a bit tricky.

Start the round by knitting the corner stitch, YO, K1 (3 stitches of the expansion area). At the end of the round, K1, YO (2 stitches of the expansion area). You will be back at the beginning corner stitch.

On the purl row, you don't do any increasing. Just purl the five stitches of the expansion row.

It should make perfect sense once you knit and purl the first row.

Email me if you need more info or want a screen shot of my pattern as I am working it.

Thank you so much! That helps ALOT! Everyone is giving me the best information so I think I now know what I'll be doing for the border. I hope my border comes out as nicely as yours is looking. I checked that border pattern out again in my Japanese book. It will be beautiful! Thanks again!

I agree with the advice you have received.Read all of he rows in the same direction. -- Right to left. For the garter background the even row needs to be in purl. Pull out your WRS instructions. She talks about it there. For a / on the purl row I purled 2 together. For the \ it is a bit tricky. Here is what Sharon Miller told me how she works it: (She fails to mention how to do \ in her WRS instructions.)(At the web site she said: eg:with the RH needle tip go into the 2sts to be worked as if you were going to knit them together through back of loops- so go into the backs of the 2 sts. NOW, with tip of needle still in place pull it round to front of work -to the purling position - so that you can do the purl st. Whether the dec is precceeded or followed by the make one (O/ or O\)it doesn't seem to matter in practice. On page 73 of "Cast On" Spring 2003 there is a great article "The Basics: Decreasing" by Helen Pope where she talks about a \ decrease on the purl side. Good luckMartha

Of course you are right. I could do that little swatch and knit in the round, but since I tend to just throw myself off the cliff, I know I won't :-) I trust all of the lovely women who responded by my plea for help. They have told me what I needed to know so it's off the front for me! Here is hoping it looks good!